Daily differences in patterns of physical activity among overweight/obese children engaged in a physical activity program

The aim of this study was to compare the physical activity of overweight/obese children during days when they attended a physical activity program, and days when they did not. This is a cross‐sectional intervention study of daily physical activity. The participants were referred by family, doctors, or hospital pediatricians to take part in a 10‐month interdisciplinary, outpatient obesity intervention program for children. The subjects included 41 overweight and obese children aged 8–16 years, 19 boys (46%) and 22 girls (54%); BMI: 25.7 + 3.3 kg m −2 . The MTI Actigraph was used as an objective measure of daily physical activity over seven consecutive days. Physical activity program days presented a significantly higher percentage of time (4.68%) spent in moderate‐to‐vigorous activity compared with no physical activity program days (3.16%) and weekend (2.7%). The results of this study suggest that a physical activity program can help increasing daily physical activity in obese children, with a special focus on MVPA level. Our data point that obese children are less active at weekend than during weekdays. Am. J. Hum. Biol., 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.